Matthew Melton of Oakland's Bare Wires on Why You Need to Be a Total Slacker to Play in His Band

The current lineup of Oakland's Bare Wires, with Matthew Melton at right.

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For a trio fronted by a self-described "total slacker," Oakland's own Bare Wires have been rather prolific. Guitarist, singer and sole permanent member Matthew Melton grapples with his solo material, psych/garage band Snake Flower 2, his record label Fuzz City, photography, and recording other groups all in the midst of a demanding tour schedule. That busy road recently brought him back home to Oakland, where I was able to catch up with him before he takes Bare Wires over to Europe in November. Despite recovering from some dental procedures the day before ("Take care of your teeth man"), Melton and I discussed Bare Wires' recent tour, Fuzz City, recording their next album, and their most recent release, Cheap Perfume, an excellent EP out now on Southpaw Records that finds Bare Wires at their pinnacle: honing the glam and power pop influence they have always possessed while asserting Melton's songwriting prowess with enough confidence to set them apart from the legions of hopelessly pastiche, blank-pop automatons in today's indie rock.

You just got back from a U.S. tour, how was it?
We booked this tour last minute. I have a friend with a studio in Memphis and originally decided to start working on an album by myself, then [bandmates] Omar and Tennant said they wanted to come along and make the album, so I figured we would just book a tour. About two weeks beforehand, I started piecing it together myself, since our booking agent didn't want anything to do with it. It was an old-school type tour; we played some funny places, a very funny place in Carbondale where Nirvana played, some weird basements, weird house shows. It was very endearing and mixed.

In your other group, Snake Flower 2, it seems like you definitely hone the garage/psychedelic influence, and in Bare Wires it is more like four-on-the-floor, glam rock and power pop-influenced stuff. Do you gravitate towards one style of writing more? Or do you like to alternate between the two?
The record were working on now is definitely getting into some darker, more psych stuff. We're not trying to hold any one genre. On the tour we're about to do in Europe, people might be surprised, because we'll be playing lots of new songs, old ones as well. But I've started playing with Omar, the lead-singer of Apache, and when he became our drummer, it definitely changed our sound for the better. He plays a really smooth, in-the-pocket rock beat, and that definitely gave me leeway to write differently.

So what's the next record going to sound like?
It's a darker, more psych version of smooth punk. You could say it's where Bare Wires and Snake Flower 2 meet. We recorded it on our last tour in different cities. We recorded six songs in a studio in Memphis when we were there; some in the basement of The Lager House in Detroit, some in Denver, and some in Oakland. It's a patchwork quilt of stuff we recorded as a band and stuff I recorded myself.

You've done records on various small labels. Has your experience with indie labels been positive, or was there anything negative that inspired you to start your own?
That's a funny question... I've had a positive experience overall. I started a label called Fuzz City that puts out singles, honestly just so I'd have something productive to do. It wasn't really that I thought I could make a really cool label or something, I just thought it would be fun. To put singles in bands' hands, it's a good feeling.

Have the labels you've worked with in the past inspired how you run Fuzz City at all?
I've always wanted to start a label, and thought about how I would do it. For now I'm just going to do singles. I just released a single by an all-girl garage band called Dirty Cupcakes from Oakland, they're really sweet girls. Up next I've got Lenz, which is Andy Jordan from The Cuts' new band and they have a pretty weird '80s sound going. I'm releasing a really young band called Sauna. They're from Colorado, all 17 and in high school. They sound kinda like the B-52s mixed with Thee Oh Sees or something.

So you're open to bands from anywhere, not just Oakland?
Yes, but the stipulation is usually that I record it and I take the photo. I have a visual concept for the records, they're all pretty straightforward, just a photo and a sticker.

You mentioned putting out a group whose members are all in high-school. The video you made for "Don't Ever Change," which takes place in a high-school -- was that inspired by your high-school experience, or your fantasy high-school experience?
Sort of. I never really had any friends in high school. I did have friends at the first high school I went to, but I got kicked out and had to go to my really weird neighborhood high school in Memphis, where I just didn't fit in. I ended up hanging out with the high school cafeteria lunch ladies.

You moved across the country to live here, and listening to your records, particularly Cheap Perfume, it seems like there is a lyrical theme of escapism, being on the road, taking off. Is that rooted in your childhood experience as a loner or your disillusionment with Memphis?
I feel like I always run away from things when they don't go right. I did sort of escape from Memphis. My family never got out of West Memphis, Ark., they still live in the same house they've been in since 1948. So I wanted to just get out and do something.